You asked for *notill* advice... and I'm gonna give you some...I'm gonna tell you, don't you dare use that disc! You've got great soil structure, you said, well, the minute you apply that disc, that will no longer be the case.

I'd use a stalk chopper instead. It will also fill in some of those cow tracks while it chops those stalks down to size, and you won't do any damage to earthworms or soil structure.

If your planter has smooth or rippled coulters in front of the openers, you can slice through that trash pretty good if you have sufficient down pressure. Stalks scared me the first time I had to plant through them, but after tweaking and adjusting, I barely notice them.

Question: In your opinion would a coulter implement, Turbo-Til, or any other Vertical Tillage go deep enough to destroy enough soil structure to be a detriment? I was thinking they wouldn't. You already mentioned using coulters on the planter.